Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Of students and their conservative stalkers

As a student myself (MA, and yes, it's taking far too long)I was fascinated to learn that some conservatives believe learning stops at age thirty. Given the Conservative Party of Canada's voter demographics, however, I'm not entirely surprised. They're simply reporting what they observe in their own circles: they're older and less educated than the average Canadian.

This all resurfaced after one of those youth group photo-ops which, in true Stephen Harper fashion, had been scrubbed and rubbed with enough political lye soap to render the proceedings utterly sanitized.But in a world populated by non-robots, things can still go awry. Member-organizers of the group in question, rather too tightly wound, intervened on-camera when the press attempted to interview a "non-designated" attendee. And people don't like being manipulated: when it happens too obviously, they tend to say so.

Students had been told to submit their questions to Harper in advance, and Raimee Gallant posed this one:

In light of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the reluctance of the companies involved to accept responsibility, what new control measures for oil drillers will the Canadian government put in place to reduce the risk of oil spills in Canadian waters, and ensure the continuance of our marine ecosystems and the sustainability of our fisheries?

That was skipped over--not surprisingly, given the Conservatives' contempt for environmental protection. She expressed some displeasure about that. But one criticizes the Harperites at one's peril, and the wingnuts are now out to savage the impertinent individual who dared complain.

The mudfish who inhabit the starboard side of the blogosphere are normally best mocked or ignored, but every now and then their antics deserve the full light of day. A blogger calling himself "BC Blue" and his psychotic commenters have demonstrated, once again, the seething rot that lies at the core of the conservative value-pattern.

According to BCB, the student's question was "non-economic" in nature, a claim so fatuous that it doesn't require rebuttal. But, typically, she is now under sustained and vicious character assassination at his place, and the cyber-stalkers are out in force.

We see this sort of thing fairly frequently these days--and it's always women who are targeted. For those with a clinical interest in conservative psychopathy (and ever-present misogyny), BC Blue's wretched blogsite is well worth checking out.